


Perspectives: The Dovahkiin's Voice

by The_Peridot_Shade



Series: The Girl Who Broke The World and Other Alternate Histories [3]
Category: Elder Scrolls, Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind, Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, Elder Scrolls Online, Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
Genre: Gen, I'm using ONE INTERPRETATION, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Metaphysics, Nonbinary Character, Physics, Unreliable Narrator, don't @ me about Alduin and Akatosh, only very vaguely but just to be safe, there are others - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-05
Updated: 2021-01-05
Packaged: 2021-03-15 12:07:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 862
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28563264
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Peridot_Shade/pseuds/The_Peridot_Shade
Summary: The Dragonborn details some of what occurred to disturb the timeline.  To make it so that they can have their happy ending.Let's not tell them that they are operating under only pieces of the truth.
Series: The Girl Who Broke The World and Other Alternate Histories [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2091444
Kudos: 4





	Perspectives: The Dovahkiin's Voice

**Author's Note:**

> Some more hints at what went down and how it happened. Again, this is unreliable narrator POV. You're not getting everything because they don't actually know everything. They think they do, but they don't.

It is said that out there are infinite possibilities waiting to be born.There are infinities hidden in every choice, an eternity of ways it could have gone.Shrouded from our sight, but still there.Still observable, if you just know how to _see_.

But observation makes reality; until the moment we perceive the results, it is not _real_.Equally important to note is the reverse: if we observe it, it is real.

Reality hinges upon every observer.Everyone that ever lived, breathed, died, _chose_.

So in those multitudes, how do you find a single outcome yet unobserved?How do you perceive each result without it, also, becoming your reality?

You don't.You can't.

But you can even the playing field.

Time and space are foes, squabbling bitterly over territory.No matter what you call them—Akatosh and Lorkhan, Alkosh and Lorkhaj, Alduin and Shor—they exist in eternal stalemate.

What happens, then, if you break that stalemate?

What happens if you nudge a little here, a little there, in favor of one or the other?

A great deal, as it turns out.

Once, I would have thought this sort of act was beyond me.Later, I would have reveled in the permanence I achieved all-unknowing.Here and now, I am…relieved.

Impermanence, I have come to learn, is transcendence.

Our limitations are no match for the creative spark within us, the balanced Order and Chaos that is _life_.

If we were, in truth, bound to one outcome, why would our choices have any meaning at all?And yet they do.

They mean _everything_.

And it is beautiful.

Before I ever held an Elder Scroll, before I inhaled dragons and exhaled _power_ , I spent my life running from things I thought immutable: the alien female-ness of my own form, the wars and treaties that took everything and gave nothing back.

I chose sides because I thought I must.I walked the path laid out for me because I knew the price of doing otherwise.

And it changed me, irrevocably.As all things must change.

I do not regret my choices, per se.I regret that I did not know there were _so many_ choices I could have made instead.

I regret that I never learned to depend on more than my voice.I regret that I lost my humanity.

I regret never simply stopping on a roadside to watch the sunset.I regret never making a friend for the sake of friendship alone.

But these roads are not closed to me, not truly.

Time is not linear.Everything that ever is or was or will be _is happening_.Always, in every variation imaginable.We simply don't perceive it.

And so the question became, to we four who wished to _change_ , why do we not?

Why are we blind to all the possibilities?

We knew it was not impossible to do otherwise, see.We had our proof in three forms:

First, that our reality is solely a matter of perception.Any student of Alteration can tell you this.The conclusion that is not often drawn, however, is that we _can_ observe more than one version of reality, for what else is our will and magicka applied to but an altered perception?

Second, that there are mortals and those who were born mortal who, with assistance or through means that call upon either time or space (and on rare occasions both) can perceive possibilities normally out of their reach: oracles, those who scry, those who calculate.The Psijic Order.Sotha Sil.The Moth Priests.

And third, the Elder Scrolls themselves.

The Elder Scrolls that _change_.

We knew it was possible.We just had to determine _how_.

Sheogorath's part was simple enough to ascertain: perception of reality is a trick of the mind, a story we tell ourselves to make sense of concepts that are inherently nonsensical.

Strip away the story, and you are left with _everything_.

And therein lay the crux of the matter: it would be _everything._

There would be no way to influence outcome—everyone's perceptions would clash, too many variables introduced.

And we wanted specific outcomes.

So there would need to be a way to direct it, or limit it.

That's where the rest of us came in.

We are the anchors, the linchpins.

It was simple enough.The Vestige worked three days and three nights, sewing the enchantments that would hide us and protect us into our underclothes.The Nerevarine took up needle and ink, imprinting the symbols that would allow us to _see_ into our very skin.And I spoke the words into being, the last words I ever spoke: to tie Time to us.

And Sheogorath opened the Elder Scroll.

I will not write of what I saw/heard/smelled/felt then.It is too personal, strikes too deep into the heart of my being.

But I will tell something of the consequences.

We have wandered all over Nirn.We have stood on every shore, touched every root and rock.

All to pull perceptions to us, subtly.All to factor ourselves into the choices of everyone who now _sees_.

Just as we do.

Just as we have wrought.

**Author's Note:**

> These small bits are getting churned out fast by my standards, but the longer, more detailed looks at the heroes' individual timelines will take a while, so don't wait with bated breath, lol


End file.
